


Amber

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: First Kisses, M/M, Some hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Some things make giant monsters and insect-shaped aliens pale in comparison.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for [ettelwenailinon](ettelwenailinon.tumblr.com).

The series of clicks and squeaks issuing from their guide were baffling to Jamie, but the Doctor appeared to understand them perfectly, replying in kind. Jamie tugged at his sleeve, glancing around nervously. If they were not in position in time, if Ben and Polly were too early…

“What’s he saying?” he hissed as the Doctor turned to face him.

“Oh!” The Doctor turned to face him, gripping his arms and looking as if he had only just noticed Jamie was there. “We need to get married!”

“Eh?” Surely this was no time for – and even if it was, he would have appreciated some sort of warning, or at least an explanation -

“They don’t allow people who aren’t married into the ground floor of the temple,” the Doctor explained. “And seeing as we have to enter it to get to the creature, then – well, we have to get married.”

“To – to one of them?” Jamie gestured to their guide, whose strong resemblance to a large, iridescent blue blowfly was off-putting, to say the least. He hardly wanted to swear his undying love to an alien fly, and a stranger at that.

“Well…” The Doctor twisted his hands together nervously. “We could always marry each other.”

It took Jamie a moment to process this, as the Doctor watched him expectantly. Surely there was no harm in it – and it would be better to marry the Doctor than some alien he hardly knew. _The Doctor’s an alien_ , something in the back of his mind supplied. _Are you sure you’re not just_ – no. The Doctor was a human-shaped alien, at least, and one he knew and trusted.

“Aye, that would be better,” he choked out at last. The Doctor beamed at him.

“Splendid!” He turned back to chatter at their guide, who immediately flitted off, presumably to pass on the message. “You know, I haven’t been engaged since – well, it’s a long story. Some other time, perhaps.”

Time seemed to pass strangely as they waited, slipping past like the sand of their surroundings through his fingers as the wind tossed it to and fro, yet Jamie spent every moment tense and hyper-aware of the Doctor’s presence beside him. He allowed himself to wonder what the wedding ceremony would entail. How would he know what to do? He wanted to turn to the Doctor for advice, or reassurance, but found he could not even look for him.

Their guide returned accompanied by a second creature, adorned with what Jamie supposed passed for robes on a fly-alien, and chattered to the Doctor happily. Jamie smiled stiffly when the newcomer gestured to him, and tried not to think about the unnatural way its mouth was moving, and the swivelling domes of its eyes.

“What’s it saying?” he hissed at last.

“We’re to be taken away for preparations, and then to a side chapel,” the Doctor said haltingly. “They, ah, they can’t carry out the full ceremony without the sacred artefacts that are in the temple, but they can do enough to allow us to enter.

That ought to have been a relief, Jamie thought as he was lead away. He ought to have been glad that he was not really marrying the Doctor, that it was just a ploy to get into the temple, that they would be on their way again soon and they could forget the whole incident. He should not have felt disappointed, like he was wishing that it was real, like marrying the Doctor was something that he should want, that he could have.

He was vaguely conscious of alien attendants arriving, of a crown of desert flowers being placed on his head and a heavy cloak fastened around his shoulders. It was altogether too hot for the cloak to be comfortable, but he drew it around himself for comfort as they guided him towards the chapel. He saw another group already there, and knew that it was the Doctor’s party. It was all happening so fast that none of it seemed to be quite real. He had almost forgotten that there was some great beastie in the temple amongst the rush and shock of a marriage ceremony, of all things.

The chapel was beautiful, to say the least, a honeycomb of glass like thin, polished amber, all held together by thin wires. Light spilt through the roof and walls to tumble onto the floor, lending everything a warm, surreal glow. It danced over the aisle, the archway at the end, the priest, and finally at the Doctor, dressed in cloak and flower crown as Jamie was. He met Jamie’s eyes and broke into a wide smile, and Jamie was rendered breathless for a moment by the affection with which the Doctor was looking at him, as if he were some dazzling horizon on another planet. When he reached the archway, the Doctor took his hands, gazing at him adoringly, and Jamie found that he could not look away.

“You look beautiful,” the Doctor said, and Jamie smiled shyly, biting his lip and finally breaking eye contact with him.

“So do ye,” he managed.

“When the ceremony starts – just copy what the priest says as best you can,” the Doctor said, sounding a little shaky himself. “I’ve persuaded them to change it a bit, to, ah, make it easier for you – well, you’ll see.”

Before Jamie could reply, the priest started clicking, and the witnesses fell silent, so he settled for squeezing the Doctor’s hands. To his relief, they did not appear to be required to say anything for a while, so he simply waited, letting the Doctor’s hands in his relax him. If the Doctor was with him, everything would be fine. He was jolted out of what little calm he had managed to achieve by the Doctor replying to the priest, and realised that he had to speak. The language still made no sense to him, and he was sure that some of what he had said was wrong, but the Doctor nodded and smiled encouragingly at him every time he finished speaking. He took that as a sign he had not accidentally offended everyone in the chapel, and supposed he had to be thankful for small mercies. At last, they seemed to be finished, but the priest gestured between them, and Jamie felt a wave of terror wash over him. Surely – surely they could not be asking him to -

The Doctor let his hands fall to his sides, twisting his own together nervously. They were asking him – how could he do this? Then again, he told himself, the aliens were giant insects. He was not sure they had any concept of how humans worked, or that they cared that they had just overseen the marriage of two men. Before he could work up the courage to ask, however, the Doctor had taken his face in his hands, looked at him for a long moment, and kissed him.

Jamie had expected more than a quick peck, an obligatory formality, but the Doctor seemed to want something more than that, his lips moving softly against Jamie’s, one hand falling from Jamie’s cheek to take his hand, guiding it to his waist. Even as the rational part of his mind was crying out for him to pull away, to retain what little sense there was in all this, Jamie kissed back, drawing the Doctor closer, reaching up with his free hand to tangle in his hair almost automatically. The Doctor mad ea little noise of approval, deepening the kiss as Jamie did so, and Jamie thought his heart would burst with affection. It was a rather clumsy kiss, he thought, their noses bumping together, the Doctor’s hands seeming unable to settle on his sides, but a nice one. Only then did he remember that he was hardly supposed to be kissing the Doctor, that this went again everything he knew. He pulled back, both of them breathless, the Doctor beaming at him.

He felt slightly dizzy, reaching out to grip the Doctor’s arm to steady himself. The Doctor seemed to take that as approval, wrapping an arm around his waist and leaning up to kiss him on the temple. More than anything, Jamie wanted to touch his lips, still tingling pleasantly, but he forced himself to be still, suddenly feeling a little sick. It was as though his insides were fizzing with a mess of worry and giddiness and terror and a desire to move his hand up, to cup the back of the Doctor’s neck and draw him in for another kiss. _It’s not like you haven’t thought about it_ , a voice in the back of his mind put in. _You’ve thought about kissing him plenty of times. You’ve wanted to. You’ve nearly done it more than once._ But this was different. This was hardly just thinking about how easy it would be to lean over and kiss the Doctor, or wondering what the Doctor’s lips would feel like against his, or wanting to hold his hand. He had actually _kissed_ him, and now the memory would not leave his mind.

“Shall we go?” The Doctor’s voice brought him back to reality, and he nodded dazedly, following the Doctor outside. “You know what you have to do?” he asked, frowning at Jamie worriedly. “Are you quite alright, Jamie?”

“Hm? Oh, aye, I’m fine...” The shock of the wedding was fading away now, replaced by a sharp focus as he turned to the task at hand. “I’m fine.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” The Doctor frowned concernedly at him, but led him towards the temple anyway, sticking to the wall and pausing just before the door. “Three, two, one...” He peered inside, something he saw there making his eyes widen. “Go!”

He leapt inside, and Jamie darted after him, running through the circular cloisters around the edge of the temple, heading in the opposite direction to the Doctor. The main temple was of a similar design to the chapel, but with more levels and domes in the roof. Many of them had shattered in the creature’s violent attempts to free itself, the glass fallen to the floor in great chunks. The beastie itself was far larger than Jamie had expected, tall enough for its thrashing to shatter the roof, its roars making the ground shake. It resembled a large boar, blood-red, its tusks chipped and scratched but still gleaming. As Jamie ran, its eyes narrowed, focusing in on him.

He barrelled almost straight into the Doctor’s arms underneath the balcony at the far wall, the Doctor gripping him by the waist – though whether to support Jamie or himself, Jamie was not sure. “It’s as I thought,” the Doctor said breathlessly. “It’s too big to get out of the temple – we’ll have to – Ben! Polly! When you see us, drop that acid!” The screeching of glass against glass muffled any answer that might have come, and the Doctor patted Jamie’s side as if in reassurance. “Let’s hope they heard. When I say run -” He turned to see the creature bent down, its jaws barely a metre away from them, and his mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ that would have been comical in any other situation. “Run!”

He grabbed Jamie’s hand before Jamie even had time to react, lacing their fingers together securely and dragging him along. As the beast struggled to turn itself around they heard the hiss of acid, and Jamie looked up to see Ben and Polly on one of the higher balconies, emptying their buckets over the creature’s back. An acrid smell drifted through the temple as it reared up, bellowing in pain. The roof began to cave in behind them, glass shattering on the floor, sending out stinging splinters that dug into Jamie’s legs.

Looking up, he saw one shard dropping just ahead of them. Its size – its speed – it was more than capable of killing the Doctor, and it stood a good chance of doing so. Instinctively, Jamie flung himself at the Doctor, pushing him out of the way as the shard crashed to the ground. The Doctor stumbled to a halt just as it landed, breathing hard.

“Thank you, Jamie,” he gasped out. “I -” He was interrupted by the creature’s thrashing coming to a halt as it collapsed, making the temple shudder one last time. The remainder of the ceiling was starting to give way. “Come on!”

It was only when they stumbled out of the temple and into safety that Jamie realised how light-headed he felt. Suddenly dizzy, he leant against the Doctor’s side. Everything seemed so different, the desert empty, the sun blindingly bright. He was so tired…

“Jamie?” The Doctor turned to face him, hands roaming across his face and shoulders anxiously. “Jamie, are you quite alright – oh, Jamie.”

Following the Doctor’s gaze down to his arm, Jamie saw a long, deep gash had been sliced from the inside of his wrist to the crook of his elbow. It was bleeding profusely, but he hardly seemed to feel it, watching almost disinterestedly as the scarlet drops scattered onto the sand below them.

“Oh,” he managed at last. “It doesnae hurt.” That was a lie, he realised a moment later – his arm felt as if it were on fire, but everything was so distant that it hardly bothered him. “I’ve had worse.” That, at least, was the truth. Everything felt slow, fuzzy but somehow crystal clear. He was only vaguely conscious of himself slipping to the floor, but he could feel every point of contact between him and the Doctor.

“No – no, no, Jamie -” The Doctor eased him down to the ground, sitting cross-legged behind him so Jamie’s head was cradled in his lap. “You’re going to be alright, Jamie, you’ve just, ah, lost a lot of blood is all. It’s going to be fine.” He sounded a little faint, and Jamie wondered who precisely he was trying to convince.

“If I get better...” He had to force the words out of his mouth, painstakingly and deliberately. “If I get better, will ye kiss me again?” It no longer seemed to matter that kissing the Doctor was not the proper thing to do. It had felt so right, like everything had finally slotted into place, that he could not bring himself to care whether or not he was meant to. He suddenly desperately wanted to kiss the Doctor again, never mind the consequences.

“Of course I will,” the Doctor said, smiling reassuringly. “Which is why you’re going to get better. Because I owe you a kiss.” He turned away, his face lighting up with relief. “Ben! Polly!” Jamie saw Polly’s worried face appear in the corner of his vision, her expression changing to one of horror at the amount of blood spilling over the ground, Jamie’s skin, his and the Doctor’s clothes. “We need help,” the Doctor said, a little uselessly.

“But -” Polly seemed unable to so much as look at Jamie, facing Ben instead. “We can’t speak to the people here.”

“Just bring them here, I don’t care how you do it,” the Doctor said, plucking his handkerchief from his pocket and pressing it over Jamie’s arm.”He’s bleeding out, fast.” There was a note of urgency in his voice that Jamie knew he was not meant to hear. Polly’s eyes were still wide with terror, and it was Ben who nodded and led her away. “Don’t worry,” the Doctor continued, brushing Jamie’s hair out of his eyes gently. “This planet has good medical technology. You’re going to be alright.”

“Mmm.” Jamie reached up with his good hand, intending to cup the Doctor’s face. He missed, and settled for pawing gently at his shoulder. The Doctor took his hand, stilling its motion, rubbing circles on his palm with his thumb. “If I don’t get better, I won’t get a kiss.”

“You’ve already had one,” the Doctor replied absently, fussing over the already soaked handkerchief.

“Aye. Why was that?” Jamie could hardly remember now. His memories were all mixed up, as if they were spilling out like the blood from his arm. “Why did ye kiss me?”

“Well, I… it was a wedding,” the Doctor explained, seeming somewhat confused himself. “I persuaded them to let me do it. I thought that if the rights were more human, you, ah, might be more comfortable. I would’ve asked them to let me use a ring if I had one on me, or we weren’t so pressed for time.”

“Ye just wanted to kiss me,” Jamie replied accusingly, but he smiled up at the Doctor.

“Hmm. And if I did?”

Jamie was saved from having to reply by Ben and Polly returning, this time accompanied by their guide and a number of the other aliens who had been witness to the wedding. The Doctor chattered urgently to them. It was all growing distant, like Jamie was watching the scene from far away, and he wondered if this was what death felt like. He had thought that the pain would fade, but it was still as strong as ever, if not stronger. Trying o focus on the Doctor’s hand in his, Jamie felt his consciousness slipping away, the sounds becoming quieter, the bright sun and the open desert fading to black even as he struggled to keep himself awake.

* * *

The room he awoke in was filled with pastel shades, blues and pinks and creams swirling together like clouds, and for a moment he wondered whether he really had died. But his arm was heavily bandaged with a material that felt like cotton, and there was something heavy across his stomach. After a moment, he realised that it was the Doctor, sitting in a chair at his bedside but sprawled out across him, one hand reaching up towards his chest like he had been holding his hand. Clumsily, Jamie patted at the Doctor’s head, intending to stroke his hair gently, seeking the reassurance of contact, but hitting him harder than he had expected.

He stared down at the Doctor in horror in his confused, sleepy haze, suddenly overcome with remorse, as if he had dealt him a mortal blow. The Doctor stirred, curling in on himself protectively, then sitting up and yawning widely.

“Doctor?” Jamie reached out towards him again.

“Hm? Jamie?” The Doctor rubbed at his eyes sleepily. “Jamie!” He all but threw himself forwards, fussing over Jamie, pressing levers and buttons and somehow making the bed move so Jamie was sitting upright. “Oh, Jamie, I was so worried.”

“Aye, I thought...” Jamie glanced around at their surroundings. “Where are we?”

“At the – oh, I suppose you’d call it a hospital,” the Doctor said. “They’ve made up – well, this.” He gestured to the bed, which Jamie realised was a mismatch of other pieces of equipment. “Ben and Polly are back at the TARDIS.”

“Can I see them?”

“No, I’m afraid they’re not allowed in.” The Doctor looked away, suddenly seeming nervous, though in his haze of contentment, Jamie could not fathom why. “They only let me in because – well, because I’m, ah, your husband.”

“Oh.” The memories suddenly came flooding back, and he found himself reaching for the Doctor’s hand almost automatically. “Ye promised me a kiss if I got better,” he recalled. “Do I still get one?”

“If you want,” the Doctor said, reaching out towards him in return, his hand hovering over Jamie’s shoulder. “You are on some heavy painkillers, Jamie, are you sure -”

“Och, I’ll put it like this, then.” Jamie struggled with his seemingly limited control of his own body for a moment, before succeeding in raising one hand to cup the Doctor’s cheek. “Will ye kiss me?” The Doctor looked torn for a moment. “I’ve wanted this for a long time, Doctor.”

“Well, seeing as you asked so nicely,” the Doctor said, smiling and leaning in. “I will.” He kissed Jamie gently, as if he were afraid of breaking him, stroking his hair soothingly, Jamie kissed back eagerly this time, moving his hand from the Doctor’s cheek to the back of the his neck to pull him down. “Mmph. Jamie. Jamie, you’re hurt.”

“Aye, I know.” Jamie pulled back, his hand falling from the Doctor’s neck, running down his shoulder and arm. He found himself unable to hold the Doctor’s affectionate gaze, looking down at his hands, twisting his sheets into an anxious knot. After a moment, he bit his lip, trying to fight the smile that threatened to spread across his face, and gathered his courage to look back at the Doctor. “Do ye mind? That we’re married, I mean?”

“Of course not,” the Doctor said. “As a matter of fact, I rather like it.”

“Aren’t ye meant to court someone before ye marry them?” Jamie asked, and the Doctor chuckled.

“Alright. I won’t buy you a ring until you’re properly _courted_ , then, husband.”

An odd thrill rushed through Jamie at that. “I’m your husband.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re mine.”

“If you want me to be.”

That simple statement told Jamie everything he needed to know – that he stood on the verge of what could be the best thing in his life, that he wanted this, that the Doctor felt the same way. “Aye, I want ye to be.” He paused for a moment. “But I expect flowers.”

The Doctor burst out laughing at that, and Jamie was suddenly, inexplicably glad that the Doctor was _his_ husband. He had never really thought of the Doctor as someone one could claim, or get jealous over – he was too much of an enigma, quicksilver in the form of a fae creature. But he was Jamie’s now, and somehow Jamie knew he would not want it any other way.

“Flowers,” the Doctor repeated, as if awestruck by the very concept. “Yes, I think I can do that.”


End file.
